The Good Shepherd

I'm getting ready to head out of town on a biannual fishing trip with the guys. I've spent all week changing line, packing my tackle bag, and plotting my strategy for the weekend - our trip is part relaxation and part competition.

So I've been thinking fish, fish, fish. And part of me thought that I would look up this week's lectionary text and see something about "fishers of men" or maybe a Jonah reference.

Instead, its all about sheep.

Its John 10:11-18. Jesus is explaining to his listeners how he is the shepherd and we are his sheep, and that he would lay down his life for his sheep. But then he drops in a jewel of an ambiguous line in verse 16:

I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold


Just what is that all about?

Have You Seen Him?

This week's scripture: Luke 24:36-48

Its one of the post-resurrection appearance stories found in Luke.

And that brings up an interesting point: No post-resurrection appearance story is told in more than one of the gospels. Matthew has two: The first to Mary Magdelene and the "other Mary" the second to all the disciples on a mountain in Galilee. Mark had no post-resurrection appearances in it original form. Luke has this story, and the road story that lends this blog its name. John has an appearance to Mary Magdelene alone, and appearance to some of the disciples in Jerusalem, an appearance to more of the disciples (now including Thomas), and an appearance to the disciples near the Sea of Galilee.

To complicate things, Paul writes to the early church in Corinth that:

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me.

So what do we make of all these stories? What do we make of the fact that they are apparently inconsistent?

I know what I think, and it gives me great comfort - what do you think?

More from our Moderator

I'm still basking in the afterglow of our Lenten Daily Blog Updates, so nothing substantive from me today.

I did come across the following blog entry on PCUSA Moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow's website, which I reproduce here in it entirety. The days of the newspaper and the yellow pages are almost over, are we ready to carrying Jesus's message with today's technology?

"Over the past few years I have become more and more convinced that if the church hopes to reach out to folks in meaningful and effective ways, we MUST embrace the power of social media.
Shocker I know ;-)
It is pretty simple really, with more and more folks using the internet to find all of the things they need in life - doctors, pre-schools, support groups, social gatherings - shouldn't we, as the church, be there too? Of course, word of mouth and personal invitations will always have a place, but the ways in which the internet allows folks to do more research about all of life's needs, including a place of spiritual growth, must not be ignored.
We have found that most folks who visit MBCC already know far more about us than we know about them. They read our staff and members blogs, our Yelp Reviews, our website so they know far more than they could find out in one face-to-face visit. In fact, unless they contact us beforehand, they have ALL the power in the relationship because they have a disproportionate amount of information. How awesome and anxiety reducing is that? Visitors arrive and can immediately recognize people, the setting, and feel far more at home that if this were the first time they had any exposure to the community.
More importantly, an effective social media presence allows us to let folks know who we are - culturally, theologically, stylistically - and gives folks the chance to see if we are consistent in our message and if our beliefs play out in our actions. Nothing worse than getting tricked into visiting to church by a smooth online presence and then finding out the old bait-n-switch has been played on you. And since it is safe to assume folks do not choose a church for negative reasons, all the hopes and expectations turn out to be true.
So how do you test this?
Ask folks how they found you and why they made their initial visit.
Find out where people in your communities find other services and add your church.
Ask people outside as well as regular participants to wander your online presence and give feedback about what you are communicated what visitors could expect from your church.
Ask folks, if, on their first visit how they did or did not experience what they had expected.
Now of course, we can always go overboard and focus too much energy on marketing, but my guess is that most churches, rather than increase money and energy expended, we need to shift the where those resources are used. Rather than spend $100 - or much more - a month on the yellow pages, take a few of those hours and set up a blog, cleanup your website, hired a web 2.0 tutor, etc. Whatever we do, we cannot simply ignore the power that social media gives to the future health and growth of the church."

Easter Sunday

The Truth is still out there . . . if we will but look for it.

Saturday

This is the in-between time.

Friday is past, Jesus is dead.

And we wait for Sunday, knowing more about the end of the story than his first followers did, knowing that Sunday will bring Jesus back to us.

Or do we? Do we still think of Jesus as gone from us, and not trust that Easter Sunday says that Jesus is very much with us today.

That's the whole point of Easter Sunday, right?

Friday

Today was the day he suffered and died.

And lest we feel too superior and judgmental of those weak-minded fools that killed a man for his religious, social, and political beliefs, consider this as your Good Friday Meditiation:

God was executed by people painfully like us, in a
society very similar to our own ...

by a corrupt church, a timid politician, and
a fickle proletariat lead by professional agitators.

- Dorothy L. Sayers,The Man Born to Be King (1943)

Thursday

My family has just arrived back from D.C. this afternoon. We had a wonderful, if tiring, time. We've just finished a familiar meal around our familiar table, and everyone knows that the usual food is the best when you get back in from traveling.

Today is also Maundy Thursday, when Jesus and his followers gathered around a familiar passover table and ate familiar Seder food. But something was different this time around. At the conclusion of the meal, Jesus took bread and wine, and using these simple everyday foods, demonstrated to his disciples that the end of his life was near. His flesh would be as broken as the bread, and his blood would be spilt like so much table wine.

And this would all be done, he said, for them.

Some protested. Others worried. Peter boasted with the false bravado of someone deeply shaken. And Judas, whether from greed (not likely), disappointment (meh), or impatience (my suspicion) decided to take matters into his own hands

Jesus left the table, went back to the Mount of Olives, and prayed. What he prayed is, I think, the most understandable thing a human being can pray: he prayed for help. Help out of the thing if possible, but if not, help to overcome it.

Its this prayer of Jesus that gives me peace about my own shortcomings. Even he doubted. Even he worried. Even he asked to be let off the hook.

But in the end, he acknowledged that he would accept whatever God dictated.

Our own problems are so much smaller than what he was dealing with on that Thursday night long ago, but our need to please, to earn God's love, often doesn't allow us to admit what even Jesus felt free pray: We want things to be better, to be easier on us.

I know that's a feeling you've had as you sat at your familial meal in your familiar struggles.

Let's own it.

Let's admit it.

Jesus did.

Wednesday

According to the Gospel of Mark, today was another day of Jesus teaching in the Temple and retiring to rest on the Mount of Olives. In fact, today Jesus went further, on up the Mount and all the way into the nearby town of Bethany, where a past beneficiary of Jesus's healing power (and, we can surmise, current follower) lived, someone formerly known as Simon the Leper.

Here Jesus reclined with his followers, but their heads were all in very different places. His followers were probably still very excited and disoriented by the triumphal entry, the temple cleansing, and the continued teaching of Jesus. Their leader, however, was beginning to struggle more directly under the weight of what he felt called to do.

We know Jesus was mindful of the immediacy of his suffering and death because of how he responded to what happened that Wednesday night in the home of Simon. An unnamed woman forced her way into the room of reclining men (such an act itself would have been scandalous in Jesus' day) and once inside she poured a jar of expensive ointment (worth about a year's salary for the average laborer) over Jesus' head. While the disciples protested, Jesus thanked the woman, and defended her actions as having been a great service to him.

I can only imagine how he felt, but I can guess that he was appreciative of the kindness, however extravagant, because he knew it was the last such pleasure he would feel before his suffering and death in the following days.

And I'm willing to give the human Jesus this small moment of pleasure.

Tomorrow, I'm afraid, won't be so pleasurable.

Tuesday

So another night on the Mount of Olives, and another day teaching in the Temple. Today, with the disruption of yesterday's visit behind him, Jesus is suddenly a very important person on the temple mount

Owing to his newfound noteriety, Jesus is subjected to a series of questions from various temple factions. All are seeking to discredit him somehow, and their questions are all cynical and designed to eliminate this new threat in the same way that they've eliminated all the other challengers in the past.

But something was different this time. This time, the dirty peasant from out of town was able to turn all their questions back on them. Ultimately, even the most adept questioners were left speechless. Jesus from Nazareth, the supposed son of a carpenter without any formal training, had beaten the scribes at their own game.

I'm sure his performance on the second day in the Temple both solidified his position among the common citizens and further endangered him with the powerful and the connected.

What did Jesus do (WDJD)?

He went back to the Mount of Olives, prayed, and rested up for Wednesday.

More work to do.

Monday

This was it. This was the day that got Jesus killed.

He didn't get executed by the Romans for healing sick people. He didn't get arrested for preaching good news to the poor. And he certainly didn't get sentenced to death for riding a donkey into the eastern gate of Jerusalem (no matter how much it lampooned the Roman's occupation).

Jesus got killed for breaching the peace.

Well, it was more than that really. He breached the peace in the Jewish temple. And during the Passover celebration. And he made a mess of the temple market.

Well, it was really more than all of that as well. Jesus attacked, both symbolically and physically, the economic system that was grinding down the working people to the betterment of the occupiers and the corrupt priesthood. That's what got the temple guards attention, and that's what cause the temple authorities and the priests to begin plotting to arrest him.

We read this story with our post-Easter eyes and assume Jesus was repudiating the entire temple itself, if not the whole idea of the blood sacrifice. But those motives are not in the gospel text. Instead, Jesus is portrayed as attacking the perversion of the temple practice and the priesthood.

Remember, the temple authorities, indeed the high priest himself, were appointed by the Romans during this period. Its no accident that the high priests before and after Caiaphas had Greek names (Jonathan and Annas) and not Jewish ones. These folks had a vested interest in the temple enterprise, and it had very little to do with atoning for the sins of the common man. What they did concern themselves with was gathering enough temple tax from the poor devotees to pay off the Romans so that they could keep their lofty political positions.

So Jesus lashed out against this system on this day some two thousand years ago. And its is my strong belief that, without this day, their is no Thursday arrest, no Friday execution, and no Easter morning.

Palm Sunday

And so we begin Holy Week. Two thousand some odd years ago, Jesus began Holy Week with a plan.

His plan was, I think, to lampoon the occupying Roman Army while also signalling to the Jewish people that a new day had arrived.

As we discussed yesterday, and in the eMMAUS class this morning at PPC, the Roman army had undoubtedly arrived in the Holy City in preparation for the Passover festival. As Passover was already a politically charged time in the life of the Jewish people, Pilate probably reasoned it would be bad to give them any sort of room to feel free or independent from Roman rule. The presence of the Roman garrison from Caesarea would both protect imperial property and also send a powerful political message.

Its easy to imagine the spectacle of the Romans marching into Jerusalem. Undoubtedly, many watched the procession with a mixture of fear, awe, and resentment. Some may have been happy to see them come. Regardless, hundreds of hardened soldiers were probably involved, and they came with their full array of horses, chariots, banners and drums.

The message they were sending was clear: You are subjects of Imperial Rome. Behave.

But on the other side of the Holy City, the son of a peasant from the tiny hamlet of Nazareth had another procession in mind. Either purely through well timed symbolism and happy accident or, as I like to believe, after careful planning and a signal to his followers ("the Master has need of the donkey", etc sounds like codewords to me!) Jesus marched into the capital and sent a very different message.

He was all alone, riding on a young donkey.

No pomp, no circumstance, no power. Bu plenty of message, and a subversive one at that. His followers got the message regardless, as they quickly began clearing a path for him into town, spreading cloaks and blankets and waiving branches at him (note: these are things are things even poor people have handy). The crowd yells "Bless You, Save Us," to him as he passed through the eastern gate of the City.

What must have been going through his mind! Surely he was excited by it all, surely he was hopeful. Maybe, I'm sure he allowed himself to think, this will work out after all. Maybe the people will see what he is saying and stop compromising themselves and cooperating with the Romans and corrupt temple officials. Maybe he can win this thing and survive.

But I'm sure another part of him knew better.

Another part of him knew this was the beginning of the end.

Palm Sunday Eve

OK, OK - I know its not a real holiday, but consider: this is the eve of the day, according to the synoptic gospels, when Jesus rode triumphantly into Jerusalem. Accordingly, it may well have been a day of preparation for him.

We know from the gospel of Mark that Jesus spent the night before his entry in Bethany, a town just beyond the Mount of Olives and to the East of Jerusalem. Out to the west of Jerusalem, some sixty miles or so, was Caesarea, home base for Pontus Pilate, the Roman Governor of Judea and Samaria.

As custom and necessity dictated, the Roman governor would spend the week of Passover inside the city of Jerusalem, projecting Roman power and ensuring, as much as was possible given the circumstances, a peaceful festival.

Then and now, Passover is celebrated by Jewish people as a remembrance of their escape from captivity in Egypt. It was a politically charged festival during the Roman occupation, as it reminded the Jewish people of a time in their history when they cast off oppression and established their own destiny.

And so, for our purposes, I'm thinking about two groups preparing for Passover week (now our Holy Week). First, we have Pilate and his Roman soldiers, heading to the Fortress Antonia within Jerusalem, to ensure peace through power. On the other side, we have Jesus and his band of misfit disciples, reading to enter the City to proclaim power through peace.

What do you think the two men (and their followers) were thinking on this eve of preparation?

How Low Can You Go?

This week's lectionary Psalm is the 31st, and if you take a moment and read it now, its the voice of someone in the deepest of deep distress.

It makes me think of Jesus, a week on the other side of our upcoming Palm Sunday, suffering in the ultimate way for what he believed in.

It makes me think of our President now overseas, attempting to balance our urgent domestic needs with our precarious international position in a now-adversarial and destructing world.

It makes me think of many of us who are facing acute financial problems - people who've lost their job (or fear losing it) and are faced with a mountain of debt and dying dreams. Just this morning I was searching the classified ads of the Greenville News for used guitars and saw pages and pages of foreclosure filings as I thumbed through. Still that many - wow.

And it makes me think of those who face long term illness, and even those, like members of my own family, who are suffering from shorter term maladies.

But through all of his negative emotion, the Psalmist still sounds a hopeful note: he recognizes that God will work through the present situation and provide rescue and support for him in his affliction.

It all goes back to the Bruggeman quote from a few days ago:
The bible in two words? Fear Not.

Its a good thought in these times.

Our Moderator and his Musings

Unless you are an uberPCUSA geek, you may have missed an April Fool's Day joke yesterday. Our Moderator, Bruce Reyes-Chow announced on facebook that he was leaving the denomination. Now, most people would immediately shrug this off as an obvious prank, but given that Reyes-Chow has been surprisingly frank about his struggles with the issue since taking over as Moderator, it didn't seem that far-fetched.

He quickly put the word out that it was a joke, and reiterated his love and support for the Presbyterian Church (USA). In doing so, he referenced a couple of his earlier blog posts on the subject, which I found enlightening. First, he gave his "Top Ten Reasons to Stay in PCUSA", and then he went on to link his blog entry for a week or so ago entitled "Stay, Leave, Return, or Hold"

Both of these articles are relevant to our church (little "c") as we are in this transitional period. Do you ever think you might leave the church? Do you ever think others might? If so, what would it take? Isn't this something we should talk more about, as it is a very human emotion? Or should we just bury our feelings and hope for the best?

I'll tell you what I think - I don't think I would leave our church (little "c" again) over a position our church took on a theological or political issue because the relationships we've built there are too important to me. I do think the Church (big "C") could drive me off, if it lurched backwards in theology or politics to become less reflective of Jesus and his message. Specifically, if our church began to exclude those who are now accepted, or if it began to require pelagiatic emblems of faith or works in order to deserve entry, then I would probably seek another place to call home.

That's how I feel - anyone else thought about this issue?

Coming up on Holy Week

Next week is the culmination of the Lenten season, and will bring a conclusion to our daily blog updates. I've been giving some thought to how we would approach Holy Week - last year we did daily devotions and even had some imagined daily conversations with one of Jesus' disciples, but I'm not sure what we will do this year.

One thing that both complicates and enriches our situation next week is that it is also Spring Break for the kids. Karen and I will spend part of the week with the kids in our nation's capitol, site-seeing and learning about the geographic seat of our government. Its a trip that we are all excited about (and nervous, and worried, etc).

Be assured that we will still maintain our daily updates. In fact, I can't help but draw a parallel between our journey to the capital and Jesus' journey to the capital of Judiasm in his (and our) day, Jerusalem. Just as we are excited about our touring visit, I'm sure his disciples were also expectant about how their spiritual revolution would be viewed in the big city.

Jesus, we can be sure, was nervous and worried and hopeful, but for far bigger reasons.